


while truth lies low

by thepeacering



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 06:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepeacering/pseuds/thepeacering
Summary: “It just hit me, when we were holding Pearl. People are going to talk about that. They’re already talking about that.”“Of course they are,” Phil replied, his voice coming out unnervingly calm around another mouthful of food, and then, “Babies are cute. Pearl is cute. And you told Louise it’d be alright to vlog the whole thing.”“I know, but.” He rubbed his hands over his face with a drawn out groan, “They’re going to talk about - ‘oh, look, there’s Dan and Phil. With a baby.’ They’re going to picture us adopting a fucking baby.”Or the one where they've just met baby Pearl, and being judged isstillscary.





	while truth lies low

“What’s up with you?”

Phil had just returned from the vending machine down the hall, arms full of snacks, to be met with the top half of Dan’s head poking above the duvet as he stared down at his phone. There was a mop of frizzy curls propped up on a stack of pillows - probably every single pillow the hotel had offered, plus Dan’s own that he’d brought from home.   
  
He didn’t need to see the bottom half of his face to know that his mouth was set in a hard line. It took less than a minute after Phil had sat back down on the edge of the bed to confront him about what was running through that curly little head of his.

Phil’s perception was both a blessing and a curse. Dan really, really wasn’t as good at hiding his feelings as he wanted to believe.  
  
Dan looked up from his phone, brow creased. “What do you mean?”  
  
Dammit. Another thing he wasn’t good at was lying to Phil.

“You’ve been quiet ever since breakfast,” he shrugged as he reached for the remote, ripping open a bag of crisps and popping a handful into his mouth.  
  
“I’m always quiet.” The television flicked to life and Phil set to work looking for something mindless to play for white noise. “And moody,” he added on as an afterthought.  
  
“We both know only one of those things are true.”  
  
Dan rolled his eyes, worrying his lip between his teeth to try to suppress a grin behind the blanket. He really didn’t want to laugh right now. Not when his mind was racing the way it was.

“I just…” his eyes slipped closed. “Every time we do shit like this, people talk.”  
  
“Do shit like what?”

And fuck, he really hadn’t meant to bring this up. He didn’t want to. It was far too early into their tour for him to be slipping into this stupid sort of episode. Half of him wanted to turn this conversation back around - _never mind it_. _I’m fine. Let’s go back to_ not _discussing this._ God, his therapist probably wouldn’t have pleased to hear about the mental gymnastics bouncing around in his head right now.

He’d been feeling fine. Excited, even.

He hated admitting to not being fine. He wanted everything to just… go back to being fine. He wanted to talk about how beautiful Pearl was. Maybe tease Phil more for his fucking strange mpreg fantasies. It was so much easier, sweeping it all under the rug... even if it hurt more in the long run.  
  
He sucked in a deep breath.

“You know. The... domestic shit.”  
  
“So?”

“So… It just hit me, when we were holding Pearl. People are going to talk about that. They’re _already_ talking about that.”

“Of course they are,” Phil replied, his voice coming out unnervingly calm around another mouthful of food, and then, “Babies are cute. Pearl is cute. And you told Louise it’d be alright to vlog the whole thing.”

“I know, but.” He rubbed his hands over his face with a drawn out groan, “They’re going to talk about - ‘oh, look, there’s Dan and Phil. With a _baby_.’ They’re going to picture us adopting a fucking baby.”

“Right... Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last time.”

“You know what people are going to say.” Dan snorted. “They’re going to call it baity. They’re gonna...”  
  
He trailed off, unable to finish his sentence aloud as he warily peeked over the blanket at Phil. _They’re going to know, they’re going to read me like a book. It was written all over my face today, seeing you holding a baby like that._  
  
When Phil finally pulled his eyes away from the trashy daytime television program he’d settled on, he was looking Dan in the eye with a gaze that was frustratingly unreadable, maybe verging on flat out unaffected. He was so much better at navigating through these uncharted waters than Dan was. And he was infuriatingly better at turning the other cheek.  
  
He sat the bag of crisps onto the nightstand, lifting the corner of the duvet. Dan shot him another look - _gross. Dusty fingers_ . _Going to mess up the sheets_. Phil ignored him, resting a comforting hand on Dan’s leg over the blanket.  
  
“No one is going to call it that. Because it isn’t.”  
  
“Oh, look, here’s us with a dog. Here’s a boyfriend tag. Here we are doing couples yoga. Here’s us with a baby. Here’s...” Phil gently cut him off, “We aren’t… doing anything _wrong_ , Dan. We were visiting with a friend and meeting her daughter over breakfast.”

Dan stared down at the duvet he hadn’t realized he’d been gripping with white knuckles. God, he hated this. “They’ll talk about how good we’ll be as parents and how we should have a baby of our own and…”

“Is that what’s bothering you? People thinking about that? Us having a baby?”  
  
Dan shot him an exasperated look, as if to say _well, yeah, no shit_. Phil could only laugh, kicking out of his shoes. Dan eyed him discarding his mismatched socks warily, making sure they ended up in their dirty laundry bag where they belonged. Phil’s ability to stay calm while he was upset was maddening.

_Why aren’t you pissed, like me? Why aren’t you scared, like me?_

“We _do_ want a baby, Dan. Some day. I’m… not offended by that at all.”

His fingers released their death grip on the covers as Phil slipped into bed beside him.

“It doesn’t bother you at all anymore, does it? People talking about… our future, like that?”  
  
“No,” Phil said simply, pulling the duvet above their shoulders. He nudged Dan’s head over with his own to share the pile of pillows before smoothly snaking an arm around his waist, curling up into his side like a cat. “I don’t care. Let them talk. It’s not like they know what really goes on behind closed doors.”

He stared up at the ceiling. The stiff hotel sheets beneath them suddenly made his skin itch. 

They kind of did, really. Or at least, some of their assumptions came disturbingly close. Which was another part of the problem, another subject for the never ending list of shit that kept his mind running at night - their relationship was nowhere near as much of an enigma as it had once been.

Even being as private as they were, with the passing of time, things had begun to slip through the cracks. Day by day, things became more and more obvious - their truth was already there for those who bothered to read between the lines for it. Knowing that was enough to make him break out into a cold sweat sometimes.

Maybe they’d fucked up, mentioning their future in detail at all. Talking about purchasing a forever home, adopting a dog to fill said home with love. God, it was hard for him not to. Hard to pretend like it wasn’t everything he’d ever hoped for.

The presence of a dog in their home could be easily waved away, and Dan relished in the plausible deniability that came with sharing a pet. A dog was one thing - a fluffy little guy for two friends to look after. But a baby…? A baby obviously couldn’t be written off as some sort of litmus test for their friendship. _Obviously_.

The difference was crystal clear. It was a little more than uncomfortable - it was a fucking terrifying bridge to imagine crossing.

Imagining the pitter patter of a different kind of little feet resounding throughout their flat sent his heart into an a fervent pitter pattering of its own. Maybe they’d turn an office into a nursery. Spend the weekend painting it some soft pastel color, fill it to the brim with all of the mummy-blog approved toys and gadgets and accessories. They’d buy endless amounts of parenting books as they freaked the fuck out, figuring out how the hell they were going to survive plunging into their scariest adventure yet: raising a kid of their own.

Of _course_ he wanted all of that. They’d discussed it so many times throughout the years that Dan knew the conversation backwards and forwards by this point. _Once their careers had taken off, and their finances secured..._ Well, they’d gone and done that, hadn’t they? All that was left was crossing off their long term goals. Maybe branch out a bit more from YouTube. Diversify. Buy the house, adopt the dog, then... maybe, eventually, children of their own - in that order.  
  
They still had so many years to work out these plans. They had the means and the desire and enough love between the two of them to make it all happen. None of that made the idea of everyone _knowing_ any less scary.

He could count on his own two hands the amount of people who knew, _really_ knew, their shared truth. The thought of adding any more of their friends and family to that short list made him reel. How the fuck was he supposed to share something like that with millions of people on the internet?

Their relationship had always, always been the elephant in the room. Avoiding talking about it had become more and more of a balancing act, with every passing year the fall to the ground looking higher and higher. He wondered when the fuck their life had become a circus.

The feeling of Phil’s delicate fingers slipping beneath the hem of his shirt brought him crashing back down to reality. 

“It’s not… I don’t know. I’m not used to any of this. I’ve never… We’ve never not cared like _this_. It’s still scarier than I thought. Fuck, I don’t know.”

Dan turned on his side to face Phil, just in time to catch him yawning. “Wasn’t that the entire point of all this? Give them what they want, and let them think what they’ll think?”  
  
Phil was right. Dan would never, never admit it out loud, but he usually was. This whole tour had been mostly his idea, anyways. _It could be like some sort of fucked up exposure therapy,_ he’d said.

 _Not exposure therapy,_ Phil had corrected. _We’re just dipping our toes in the water._

“I just feel. Weird. Like this is all hitting… too close to home.” Dan relented, as Phil’s thumb pressed into Dan’s hip, swiping back and forth, leaving a blooming trail of goosebumps in it’s wake. “I don’t know why us holding a damn baby made me feel more vulnerable than any of the shit we’ve done on stage, but it did. Is that… how does that make any sense?”

Phil nods, snuggling closer into Dan’s arms. “It makes sense. The show comes with a plan. We’re in control every night. But… at the end of the day, when everyone leaves, we can’t control what they think about us. They’re all gonna think what they want. We can’t _stop_ them. Tried that, remember?”

Dan laughed bitterly, tightening his grip around Phil. He knew that. He knew that very well.

They’re quiet for a while, Phil’s head tucked tightly underneath Dan’s chin. He breathed in deeply, clinging tight to the comfort that wondrously seeped into his bones from holding Phil in between his arms like this. It was a stupid thought, but his hair smelled like home. Home, and Loreal Vive.

“You know we’re still in control, right? Outside of the show. In real life. Everything is… at our own pace.”  
  
Dan nods, "I know."  
  
It's quiet once more, until Dan admits rather croakily, "I don’t know if I’ll ever want to share… all of that. I don’t even… I don’t think I’ve ever even considered it.”  
  
“I know,” he replied softly, his voice somehow encompassing more warmth and patience than Dan felt like he’d ever, _ever_ deserved, “That’s okay. We’ll figure it all out. We always do.”  
  
It wasn’t okay, not fully.

It was more than a bit shitty, this hopeless wish that he could be the kind of person who didn’t care what anyone else thought. There was so much anxiety bubbling under the surface of his skin that had slowly grown into this all-consuming beast, born from of all what ifs and doubts and worries in his mind.

Maybe one day he’d be strong enough to stave that beast off completely, throw caution to the wind. Maybe there’d be a day that none of his worries would ever even matter. Those days felt eons away, but at least Phil was there to wait it out with him. Vigilant, brave, loving Phil. Phil was so good. So patient, and so very good to him.

The more than a bit shitty feeling finally began to subside as he found himself being unwound by Phil’s gentle and persistent touch.

“I’m sorry about my stupid brain,” he breathed, dropping a kiss to the top of Phil’s head. “Sorry for being a downer after such a good morning.”  
  
“It’s okay. I’m used to it.” Phil stuck out his tongue, earning himself an affronted slap on the shoulder from Dan.

“Okay, fine, _fine_. You know I love your stupid brain.”

“Yeah, well. My brain must be extra stupid for loving you back,” Dan retorted with a roll of his eyes. The laugh that he earns from Phil is resoundingly deep and healing, the sound reverberating throughout Dan’s chest; heating him up from the inside out like a fresh cup of tea in the morning.  
  
“They’ll rightly lose their shit, seeing you with Pearl. You do look cute as fuck holding a baby. Even if you have no idea what you’re doing. I think Pearl liked you.”

“Yeah? I was nervous. That stuff doesn’t come naturally to me, I don’t think.”

“I don’t think it comes all that naturally to anyone, really. I think anyone who says they know what they’re doing with a baby is a god damned liar,” Dan mused. “But I think we’ll be be alright parents someday. We can hack it.”

Phil snorted. “The very best parents to ever parent. I’ll be accepting my award for father of the year in a prison cell, if my houseplants are anything to go by.”

“We’ll have endless amounts of advice from Louise. It’ll be like having our own personal treasure trove of baby-rearing information. She's like, a professional baby maker at this point,” Phil wrinkled his nose at the imagery as Dan pressed on, “So when we do decide to have a kid, we’ll just have to sit down and marathon every single one of her very _informative_ videos. Which, y’know what, speaking of...”

Dan leant halfway off the side of the bed suddenly, fumbling around blindly on the floor. When he reappeared, he handed Phil one of the hotel’s round throw pillows, which he stared down at blankly.  
  
“So you can be pregnant. Here’s our practice baby. We can start now.”  
  
Phil blinked.  
  
“And... why do I need to be pregnant right now…?”  
  
“Because then I’ll have a _medical_ reason for the perineal massage I’m about to give you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> not sure why i was apparently only capable of writing something this angsty when faced with the cuteness that was dnp meeting baby pearl... whoopsies. sorry.
> 
> thanks for reading, anyway :) come say hi on tumblr @moossage


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